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Topic: Using dried starter in place of ADY/IDY ? (Read 1134 times)

We are in the middle of a busy season, moving homes, school for the kiddos, blah, blah, blah.A good dear friend sent me some dried starter to use as a seed for my own starter. When I finally get time to do pizza again, does anyone think/know/ have an opinion about using dried starter in place of ADY/IDY for some more flavor in a short period of dough fermentation? Does this idea have any merit? Aside from getting to try it myself has anyone done this before? Thanks all.

Gene, though I haven't tried it, I agree with Craig. All the starters that I have activated at warm temps have taken around 3 days to activate. I do remember Peter and Marc making a yeastless 24 hour dough though. So if you do get some rise, it maybe baterial in origin.

Also depending on what stage the starter was dried, the results could be too inconsistent even if you could get it to work. I would just save your starter for when you have time.

You would be better off getting the dried starter going again and made into actual starter - it will take about three days as Chau notes - and use some of the discard from a later feed in the dough than expecting the dried starter flakes to act like IDY. It just won't do the same thing.